In recent years, the application of so-called optical interconnection has become wide-spread as a technology for transmitting signals at high speed within a system device, between devices, or between optical modules. Here, optical interconnection refers to a technology in which optical components are handled as if they are electronic components, and are mounted on motherboards, circuit boards, and the like used in personal computers, vehicles, optical transceivers, and the like.
An optical module used in optical interconnection such as this serves various purposes, such as internal connection for media converters and switching hubs, and in-device and inter-device component connection for optical transceivers, medical equipment, testing devices, video systems, high-speed computer clusters, and the like.
As an optical component applied to this type of optical module, there is an increasing demand for a lens array in which a plurality of lenses having a small diameter are disposed in parallel, as a compactly structured component effective for actualizing multichannel optical communication (refer to, for example, Patent Literature 1).
Here, the lens array is conventionally configured such that a photoelectric conversion device including a plurality of light-emitting elements (such as a vertical cavity surface emitting laser [VCSEL]) or light-receiving elements (such as photodetectors) can be attached thereto, and a plurality of optical fibers serving as an optical transmission body can be attached thereto.
In a state in which the lens array is disposed between the photoelectric conversion device and the plurality of optical fibers in this way, the lens array is capable of performing multichannel optical transmission by optically coupling light emitted from each light-emitting element of the photoelectric conversion device with an end face of each optical fiber. The lens array is also capable of performing multichannel optical reception by optically coupling light emitted from the end face of each optical fiber with each light-receiving element.
Here, the lens array of this type configures a sub-assembly by being attached to a circuit board (chip-on-board [COB]) on which photoelectric conversion elements (light-emitting elements and light-receiving elements) serving as the photoelectric conversion device are mounted.
A sub-assembly such as this configures a full assembly by an optical connector housing the optical fibers, such as an MT connector, being attached thereto. At this time, when an active optical cable (AOC) is configured, the optical connector is attached in a non-detachable state. On the other hand, when an optical transceiver is configured, the optical connector is attached in a detachable state.    Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2004-198470